God's Fool - Tapa blanda

Born attached at the chest, Chang and Eng were considered a marvel, an omen, a prophecy, an act of God. To the West they were freaks, to the East they were either evidence of God's glory or proof of his wrath. In this powerful novel, Mark Slouka brilliantly captures their inner lives and powerfully recounts their amazing lives. As children they were presented to the Thai Royal Court as a curiosity, then as men they set sail for Europe. There they entertained Kings and counsellors in salons and drawing rooms, from Brussels to Pamplona. Inevitably the culture that lifted them cast them down. Penniless, they moved from flop house to flop house until they were discovered by the inimitable Phineas T. Barnum. Shipped off to the United States with dwarves and two headed calves, midgets and twelve fingered flute players, they toured the country before settling as slave owners in North Carolina. In a sort of pastoral idyll, Chang and Eng married a pair of sisters and fathered twenty children, before the spectre of the Civil War threatened their peace and their way of life. God's Fool is an astonishing, powerful and beautiful novel that vibrantly captures both a changing world and a unique relationship. Sweeping and intimate, arnbitious and unusual, Mark Slouka's debut novel is a dazzling achievement.

Mark Slouka is a graduate of Columbia and currently teaches there. His first collection of stories Lost Lake, included the award-winning The Woodcarver's Tale. He lives in New York with his wife and children. This is his first novel.